Job Growth Is No Longer Leaping

COMMENTARY - BUSINESS

Jobs, or the lack of them, are on the minds of a lot of people these days.

Some of the information coming out about jobs of the future, the ever-changing work place, and a projected labor shortage is amusing at best, and downright fraudulent at worst.

I recently read that the ''average worker'' can expect to hold up to 10 jobs during his or her career. The report is released at a time when millions of Americans are wondering if they will ever find just one job.

Instead of worrying about retraining for some nine other jobs, most people are concerned about any time spent away from steady work.

Unfortunately, Central Florida is not creating as many jobs as it did in the past. About 11,000 jobs were created in the region last year. That compared with 25,200 new positions the year before.

In short, Central Florida has been a hotbed for employment growth ever since Walt Disney World swung upon the gates to the Magic Kingdom in October 1971. Although some years have been much better than others, nearly every year has been a winner for job seekers.

Only in 1975 did job growth come to a screeching halt. A recession that began in late 1973 as a result of the OPEC oil embargo took its toll on the nation at large. But the gas shortage and higher prices hit particularly hard in regions of the country that depend on tourism.

In 1975, metropolitan Orlando not only failed to create new jobs, it lost 18,000 of them. Those were grim days indeed, coming at a time when Central Florida was just beginning to spread its wings and revel in its newfound reputation as the No. 1 tourist destination on Earth.

In 1972, Orlando added an unheard-of 30,300 jobs as hiring continued at Disney World. An encore in 1973 resulted in 29,800 more jobs. And Orlando flew through the recession of the early 1980s without a blemish - adding thousands of new jobs annually.

Looking back over the past 20 years, it appears that Orlando has been one of the nation's best job incubators. Consider, for example, that the area had 160,600 non-agriculture workers in 1971, compared with 568,500 non-agriculture workers at the end of 1990.

As things are currently shaping up, however, this year could become the first since 1975 in which metro Orlando shows negative job growth. For most of the past two decades, an Epcot Center or a Universal Studios always seemed to come out of the woodwork every time employment growth showed signs of flagging.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon now to jump-start the employment generator.

As a matter of fact, the same thing goes for the nation at large. There are a lot of American Dreamers who are becoming somewhat skeptical that good men and women will be in such short supply that the qualified worker will rise to rule the world - as so often has been predicted. Nor do people believe that employers will be so gratified that they will create four-day work weeks and a put in a raft of incentives to recruit and retain the cream of the crop.

If a shortage is to develop in the late 1990s, there is no evidence of it in the early 1990s. Not even in Central Florida.

One disillusioned employee wrote recently that she has given up expecting an abundance of leisure time that will come about as a result of working smarter and more efficiently. Not the kind of leisure time that comes with a four-day workweek, anyhow.

Instead, she foresees the kind of leisure time that comes with no paycheck, no benefits, and no great expectation that a developing worker shortage will arrive in time to save the day. Rather than contemplating what she will do with free Fridays, she is planning how to spend all those leisurely hours that will be afforded by retirement.

For more than a decade, Florida reported unemployment rates lower than that nationally. Since February 1991, the trend has been reversed.

We can hope it is but a temporary setback - and the jobs will reappear as quickly as they vanished.